Another Phase of the Moon
by emmaorailx
Summary: Post-Breaking Dawn; narrated in 3rd person. A new werewolf pack, a new town, and a new coven of red-eyed vampires to take down. So much for things being boring - the Cullens have two new humans to protect, only they're not as human as you'd think.


**THE** bucket of half-circle shaped ice felt like nothing but lukewarm blocks of water against Kieran Merryman's calf - he'd already spent fifteen torturous minutes clutching the arm of the old leather recliner he'd collapsed into, trying to ignore the numbing stabs of pain spiraling up from his ankle to his knee cap.

His mind had been wiped clean of the happenings of the previous night, leaving him with no explanation for his current discomfort or for why his sister's cherry red Honda Civic Hybrid was missing from it's usual spot in the driveway.

Mackenzie had left him a sloppy note, which she'd taped, to his bedroom door that had said not to worry and that she'd be back. It didn't give a time or a date or even a reassuring 'soon' about when she'd get back.

Usually, Kenz couldn't get enough of the minor details, but Kieran didn't dwell on the logistics of his sister's disappearance. All that mattered was that she was gone, not how or why.

All this thinking really got to Kieran – what if Mackenzie was in a shitload of trouble with the cops and was headed to the Canadian border? What if she'd decided to elope with that conniving son-of-a-bitch Israel Pleasant? But as far as he knew, Kenz was a law-abiding American citizen and still had enough brain cells to know that she'd be disowned if she got married without daddy Merryman's consent.

On the table besides him, his iPhone started to buzz. Careful not to slosh too much water onto the hardwood floor, Kieran stretched out to press speaker. "Hey,"

Immediately, a nervous hissed, "Do you know where Mackenzie is?"

~*~

Israel Pleasant played with the irritating fringe of the scarf tied loosely around his neck. His girlfriend of four months, whose fingertips were almost constantly tapping away at the keyboard of her BlackBerry wasn't responding to any of his texts or calls.

He hated to admit it, but Mackenzie's MIA status might've had something to do with the Zoë Zimmerman incident.

Zoë had cornered him at Metamorphosis Ball; like almost every girl in attendance, she'd taken the event's title to heart and had smeared sparkly yellow eye shadow over her lids and adorned a ridiculous pair of paisley-patterned wings to the back of her strawberry pink BCBG dress.

Israel had been depressingly lonely after some guy in a Phantom of the Opera mask took Kenz by the elbow and dragged her out of the door. He'd sounded awfully like Kieran so he'd just let it slide, knowing that she'd never make out with her twin, no matter how wasted she was off of peppermint Schnapps and some fifty-year-old red wine the Metamorphosis planning committee had stocked the place with.

Only twenty minutes after Mackenzie had been steered out of the ballroom, Israel had ended up with his hands up Zoë's dress, their lips pressing together in what was undeniably drunken passion, in a coat closet. He couldn't even remember kissing her, but when he woke up with yellow dust coating his cheeks and lips, he'd put two and two together and admitted what'd happened to Mackenzie over a voicemail. She'd never called him back afterwards. He didn't even get a furious 'FUCK YOU, NEVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN' break-up text.

"Dude, I have no idea." Kieran's thick, stoner voice came through the speaker. Israel suppressed a groan. If Kieran didn't know where Mackenzie was then no one would. "I thought she was with you."

He fought down the urge to snap his phone shut so he could start looking for Mackenzie instead of listening to her twin yap at him like he was one of his pothead buddies. "What do we do? Should I call the police?"

"She hasn't been gone for twenty-four hours yet," Kieran pointed out. "But I'm worried."

"Yeah," Israel felt the walls of his throat closing in, almost choking him, "Me too. Call me if you hear from her."

~*~

Mackenzie Merryman kicked the back of the seat in front of her, sending its passenger jolting forward. "Tell me, where are we going again?" She was in a surprisingly good mood for someone that had been kidnapped.

At first, Mackenzie had been loud and obnoxious, giggling away for the first three or four miles, but then the alcohol's buzz wore off and her attitude had followed her mind and she'd sobered up.

She leaned ahead as far as the stiff seatbelt carving into shoulder and midsection would allow, "Is it some secret hideout in the mountains? Are we going to go all Obsama bin Laden and start sending out crazy videos to our enemies? Because if so, the first should go out to my douche bag brother."

Kieran had done nothing when those creeps pulled her off of the sidewalk but say, "Dude, what's up?" and start barfing into their neighbor's hydrangeas.

The kidnapping bastard turned around, flashing a mouthful of perfect, square teeth and liquid gold eyes. He had a strong jaw, balanced off by regal, almost hooked nose and full, soft pink lips that looked surprisingly kissable for someone who'd just committed a federal crime. He ran his fingers through his already disheveled, chocolate brown hair. "Are you hungry?"

Mackenzie's kidnapper was just full of surprises. Not only was he strikingly attractive, but he was also concerned about her health. She shook her head, asking her own question instead of answering his, "What's your name?"

"Pierce," he said, shifting his eyes onto the road and gripping the steering wheel with such a force that he almost ripped the leather, "Pierce Cullen."

~*~

"You guys are aware that kidnapping is against the law, right?" asked Renesmee, her eyebrows knitting together in concern. Her family had an irrational way of dealing with things and this time was no different.

Her dad wasn't even sure if the Merryman twins were the right kids and he already had Pierce driving her to Forks for 'safe keeping'. "And what about her brother? He's in just as much trouble as she is and you're not doing anything to keep him safe. This is so sexist, just because she's a girl doesn't mean that she can't kick some serious vampire ass and who knows, Kieran could be gay and might have a worse punch than dad."

"We're working on getting Kieran out of Concord, but it isn't as easy as trapping him in a car this time. After his sister was taken, he probably won't be going around, roaming the streets." Explained Bella, sighing and tucking her long brown hair behind her ears.

Renesmee shifted her legs underneath her and cupped her face in her hands, elbows resting on the cold marble countertop, "Why don't you just stay out of it? It's not our business if someone wants to find their children."

Her mother's nose pinched upwards, giving her face an unusually sour look. "It's – it's more than Nola wanting to reunite with her children, there has been talk of… experimenting. The twins are half-vampire, half-werewolf, technically speaking. We don't know much about how they came to be or what's going on with their bodies, but we do know is that Nola's coven is searching for a way to be wholly indestructible and they believe that the Merrymans might be the solution."

"And you don't want to know more about what we are?" asked Renesmee, sensing the beginnings of the immediate uneasiness that followed her question. Her family believed in preserving humanity at all costs, something she generally agreed with, but maybe the experiments would answer some of her questions and it wasn't like the twins would be hurt. So why were her parents so against handing Mackenzie and Kieran over to Nola's clan?

Bella glanced out of the kitchen window, her frown deepening. From the driveway, a car door slammed.

"There's not always an answer for everything, Renesmee. You should get used to that."

Renesmee bit her lip and resisted the urge to shake her head. Somehow, she doubted that she'd ever get used to life's unexplainable mysteries. And as far as she knew, she'd have and eternity's worth of them.

~*~

Pierce pulled off of the road around midnight; the Volvo was about to run out of gas and he desperately needed to stretch his legs.

Mackenzie had fallen asleep only minutes ago and he already missed the sound of her calm voice and hoarse, contagious laughter that usually followed one of her bitingly sarcastic comments.

She'd realized that he wasn't going to hurt her from the start and she'd relaxed, almost treating him like a friend and he was grateful for that. It made him feel less guilty about taking her away from her everything she knew – whether it was permanent for just for a few months.

His eyes still on Mackenzie's sleeping form – her tousled red hair a curtain over her bright, buttercup yellow eyes, Pierce slipped off his sweater and tucked it under her soft cheek. Careful to lock the doors, he started running to the nearby grove of trees. He'd fill up the Volvo's tank later, after his run.

"Who're you – superman?" Mackenzie was standing besides him, her eyes still sleepy, a small scratch criss-crossed across the tip of her nose. She shook her head, smirking, "You don't need to answer that. I know what you are. I knew from the moment I saw you."

"How did you get here?"

Was that all he could bring himself to say? There were a million better questions he could have – should have – asked.

She laughed, her thumb stroking her bottom lip, "I run just as fast as you do."

"Prove it," All of a sudden, Pierce felt dizzy, his hands shook and the edges of his mouth were twitching. He remembered feeling this way when he'd gone through heroin withdrawals as a human.

Mackenzie started running before he could even yank himself down from the clouds. Fuck, she was fast. He caught up with her, gritting his teeth and trying to pull ahead, but her feet were barely even grazing the ground. Her giggles poured into his eardrums, "Need a break, old man?"

"Old man? Do I look like a day over seventeen to you?" he asked, grinning.

She put her hands on her hips, squinting and leaning forward to get a better look at his face, "Nope, but that's the point," Mackenzie pulled back, still smiling, "So where are we racing to, Mr. I've-been-seventeen-for-a-hundred-years?"

Pierce looked from her to the darkness ahead, "To the finish line, of course."

~*~


End file.
